If you took a group of people from birth, and placed them in an isolation chamber or something of the sorts, better yet had just their brains with no external input... would there be any thought?
That is a very intriguing question. If thoughts did occur maybe they would hold some kind of meaning to life...the core of existence. Because without any inpute/stimuli from what we call "reality"..this mean thoughts would be PURELY from the brain...or maybe from a higher power. Makes you wonder..hmmmm
well than how did hellen keller think? she was blind and deaf, but i guess she wasnt RIGHT from birth, but still. it is an interesting question, but how would we know what there thinking, same with we cant feed them, because theyd be thinking about the taste, and even when the babies born, it starts crying, so theres external stimuli, idk guess im overthinking this... i just dont think it could ever be done in a humane way, but it would be an interesting experiment.
Intriguing question indeed. I do not believe the people would have any thoughts. All of our thoughts, everything that goes on in our mind is based on interpretation of past life experience and external input. Because of this, it seems impossible for somebody with no external input whatsoever to experience thought because this would be a response with a complete lack of stimulus. I think only the most basic brain functions necessary for survival would continue, such as control of breathing and heartbeat. Also, human thoughts are based on our systems of language and symbols. Without any words or symbols to reference anything to, it seems that any mental activity would be impossible beyond the state of pure consciousness that other animals live in. Although Helen Keller was blind and deaf she was not completely devoid of sensory input. She still retained her sense of touch, and through that was able to understand language through Braille and at least have some sensory input of what the world is like. I do not know specifics but I remember reading somewhere that she had developed political opinions later in life so she was definitely capable of thought similar to the rest of us.
I definitely agree with this, but didn't want to be any sort of buzzkill lol but yeah, your brain needs stimuli to formulate any sorts of thoughts. A human develops a personality/ego from every experience in life. Without any experiences I feel that a human mind would just operate in "survival mode" with whatever is "hard wired" into our brains. Hunger and thirst would definitely be a few things an isolated brain would be able to understand. That's my opinion.
This idea contradicts itslf, as the brain alone would stimulate itself, being physical it must on some primative level be conscious of its own existence. So the only way for this idea to be realized would be if there was some form of consciousness that wasn't conscious at all of its self or anything, so basically a floating idea. If that makes sense, this being the idea that it is its hard to put into words.